Twee Typists

Pirandello photo courtesy of The Classic Typewriter Page

Twee Typists

One of my pet procrastination projects is researching the habits of famous writers. I find it fascinating that some writers crossed the digital divide while others still use analog methods of composition.

I'm interested in this subject because I'm part of both camps. I write the first draft of a piece by hand and edit it on a computer before publishing. This method works for me, which is OK with a task as solitary as writing, as long as one get the words down. So when I read how Capote wrote while reclining or Hemingway barechested and standing up, I consider it nothing more than idiosyncrasy. And no person, or at least no writer, is without at least a couple idiosyncrasies.

But I'm puzzled about writers that still use typewriters, especially since I rarely see typewriters these days (I live in a First World country and I don't have a time machine). What I find particularly strange is not someone like Cormac McCarthy, who has been rolling the platen for half a century. I'm talking about writers who grew up using computers but reverted to the typewriter to craft their work. I couldn't really understand what justified the inherent inconvenience in using a typewriter so I did more research about it and came across what may be the best non-government, non-commercial propaganda site on the net.

The Classic Typewriter Page¹ is run by Dr Richard Polt, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Xavier University² . The site is a cornucopia of typewriter knowledge. It's also useful for gen X/Yers interested in joining the typewriter subculture. While geared toward typewriter enthusiasts (though using one in 2014 means you're an enthusiast from the start), the most interesting part of the site is the selection of essays called Typewriter Tributes³. Written primarily by academics, students, and journalists, these pieces advocate using a typewriter in the 21st century.

The essays have a twofold purpose: to unlock and rekindle shared sensory memories of typewriter users and to show how typewriters have not been outmoded by computers and are still a useful tool for writing. The first aim didn't impress itself on me after reading the essays. This isn't surprising given that I did not grow up with typewriters and have fooled around on them only a couple times. My generation cut their typing teeth on those long since forgotten word processor boxes. I tried to keep an open mind while reading the essays, but I'm not convinced of the typewriter's usefulness. Each of the essays relies upon three assumptions, and the authors seemed unaware of this probably because they are biased, so fervent are their feelings about their favorite composition tool.

The first assumption has to do with computers and shows up in virtually all of the pieces. It would not be an exaggeration to say that computers have killed the typewriter's historical ubiquity. Typewriter fans have an ax to grind with computers, because the rise of computers means that typewriters are now difficult to find and repair. Of course, the webpage is ironic given that these pieces appear online (and not, say, in a typewritten newsletter). Irony aside, the authors generally make it clear that they are not anti-technology. That means that they aren't anti-Internet (after all, the web is now the best source for acquiring new and old typewriters and for learning how to fix them). Rather, they are anti-word processor.

Their beef with word processors (the document editing programs on a computer, not the aforementioned stand alone units that died out in the 1990s) is that they just get in the way. Their little hammers strike the page in unison with their detestation of always knowing the word count, of the digital hum of the box and of the troubleshooting procedure that any computer user must go through when things go wrong.⁴ 

What's silly about their protestations is the assumption that a computer's default, annoying configuration is immutable. Anyone who has ever used a computer knows this isn't true. Computers by their very nature are adaptable, and most problems take little time to fix. Pretty much all of the things about computers that drive these people nuts can be resolved by at least some knowledge on how to get help, or alternatively through searching for the problem on the internet. It is as if these typists don't know how to change the settings on their computer or else they know how to but refuse to do so because then the computer would win and they would be forced to acknowledge that typewriters are outmoded.

That a computer's settings can be changed seems blatantly obvious, but here's an example. I'm editing this document on a netbook with a cramped keyboard and I frequently brush against the touchpad while doing so. When this happens, blocks of text jump around and insert themselves in nonsensical places in the document. In order to get around this problem, I press the F6 key which disables the touchpad. This doesn't completely solve the problem of a small keyboard and a hypersensitive touchpad, but it certainly helps. Even a cheap netbook anticipates user problems and provides ways of fixing them.

Granted, the appeal of manual typewriters for being "green" and "off the grid" is a valid point when compared to a PC (this would explain why The Classic Typewriter Page emphasizes manual rather than electric models). But the fact remains that most of the problems with computers can be solved with little time and effort, though these typists seem to have trouble admitting it.

Another problem with these pieces is that the idea of composing with pen and paper is conveniently ignored. There are a couple of pieces which gaze fondly on the idea of working in longhand⁵ but generally these authors assume that even a longhand first draft is not feasible. This nearsightedness is unfortunate since writing by hand is pretty much distraction-free (unless you're a doodler, I'm not), environmentally friendly (what's the carbon footprint of a fifteen pound hunk of metal?) and just plain convenient (you can work pretty much anywhere so less procrastination). Simplicity, "greenness," and the ease of not being tied to an electrical outlet are aspects that these essayists tout about their manuals, but a legal pad has all of these things and more.

There are two other advantages to longhand that typists would treasure (if these essays are any indication). The first is that writing by hand generally takes longer than typing. This is important because for manual aficionados part of the appeal is that these machines force you to, allegedly, slow down and think and not make an ass of yourself as you would while text-dumping on a PC.⁶ There is a kind of pride in going slow and working with pain as your fingertips become chafed and hardened with experience and your blood, sweat and tears result in a real manuscript (as opposed to a measly computer printout).⁷

Writing in longhand may not work out the muscles of both hands as typing does but otherwise it is just the right sort of quaint. After all, pretty much everyone until Twain used some variant of longhand, and I'd wager that there's more pride in thumbing through a MS in your very own idiosyncratic hand, complete with all its flourishes and foibles. There's something to be said for producing something that resembles the Magna Carta, if only slightly.

Speaking of history, the third assumption in these pieces is that famous typists, given the choice, would have preferred a typewriter over a computer. There is a repetitive rhetoric strain that computers are puny and not masculine and that famous 20th century writers would not demoralize themselves (male writers are usually cited, perhaps unsurprisingly) by using one.⁸ While it may be true that Fitzgerald used a typewriter and not a computer, it would be a stretch to say that he would have rejected a PC if the technology had been around in his day. Likewise maybe Daniel Defoe would have worn snapbacks or maybe he would not have, the point is we can't definitively and retroactively say that he certainly would not have. If a typewriter was the most efficient writing tool of its time, perhaps people used them in the early 20th century because they were state of the art, just as the computer is now state of the art.

I doubt that the authors of these essays would agree with this line of thinking. However, I don't agree with their assertion that there is some vast chasm of difference between typing on a computer and typing on an Olivetti.⁹ If there is a difference surely it pales beside the difference between writing in longhand and typing.

If you've made it this far, it's time to ask so what? Who cares if people still use typewriters to write books? Most people will write on computers, fewer will eschew the PC for drafting and editing in longhand or on a typewriter. There will continue to be good writing regardless of where it was originally captured and polished.

But after reading through The Classic Typewriter Page and periodically checking Craigslist for used typewriters out of curiosity, I came to an unsettling realization. These typists are a very brand conscious bunch in a world that has no place for brands. Unlike music or sculpture or painting, writing is an art form less dependent on an artist's tools than on his or her talent, determination and experience (using experience as inclusively as possible). Typewriter fans however, believe that different typewriter brands and models work better for different projects.¹⁰ This explains why so many of the essayists confess to owning multiple typewriters¹¹ while at the same time bragging about the indestructibility of any given typewriter as compared to any given computer. Why own so many if all you need is one to last for a lifetime of writing?

This brand consciousness is best seen on the Writers and their Typewriters¹² page, which lists the preferred models of each writer and links to photographs of The Writer At Work At His Beloved Typewriter (caption mine). The photos are a crystallization of the site as a whole. They overemphasize the nostalgia of the typewriter in an attempt to show that these machines are still relevant. What's particularly disingenuous is the inclusion of writers like Truman Capote¹³ and Elmore Leonard¹⁴, both of whom wrote in longhand first and foremost and then used a typewriter later on for editing.

These typewriter fans assume that writers had an affinity with their writing machines, as seen in the photographs of mind and machine working together to produce a masterpiece. But it is just as likely that writers stuck with a particular typewriter because typewriters were expensive (and incredibly enough some of them still are) so they kept it as long as it worked, not because they felt that the machine allowed them to work at their best. At least some of the writers on that long list thought of typewriters as no different than teapots or shaving brushes: if it worked, great; if not, replace it. There may never have been any material attraction of the kind common among typewriter aficionados. The typewriter was just an object, a tool that allowed one to save time as compared with longhand. A writer's identity was not defined (and is still not defined) by the tools at his or her disposal.

It is unsettling to talk about writing tools as if they bear an impact on the finished product because the real work of writing takes place in the writer's head. The wax tablet, quill, pen/pencil, typewriter or word processor only sets it down and only after it passes through the quality control of the cortex. Perhaps Michelangelo's David would have been a little less beautiful had it not been carved from Carrara marble. Maybe Van Gogh had to use a specific type of paint in order to make his sunflowers look so real. But would Tender Is the Night have been a different novel if Fitzgerald had been a Remington man instead of an Underwood user? I doubt it.

One often wonders how much nostalgia clouds the writing process, especially when the writer writes with an antique. For typewriter fans there seems to be a peculiar (but often futile) desire to know the story behind every vintage machine, in an effort to establish affinity with an author from a predictably cherished bygone era¹⁵. I have no truck with a person who tries to sell a vintage typewriter by mentioning that it was Hemingway's preferred machine, but the fact that someone would buy such a machine believing that that useless fact will help them be a better writer makes me cringe. If one insists on freebasing nostalgia, why stop at typewriters? Why not think of famous writers who wore the same color socks as you do? Why not believe that you have some Dickens in you because you subconsciously started your novel with "It was the best of"? Embracing your inner Hemingway is less about shelling out for a vintage Royal and more about hanging out on Duval Street and learning how to fish and appreciate bullfighting. Experience over object. Always.

We snicker at the mediocre player who claims that new Jordans—and not more practice time—will improve his game. But I fear that we are not far off from when this brand objectification silliness will affect the writing world as well. Is it really a stretch to imagine an essay on how a novel written on a Mac differs from one written on a PC? Personally I don't think we're that far off, as ludicrous as it sounds. What irks me about typewriter users is that they embrace the vintage vibe of using old technology but ignore the beauty and brilliance of the dying art of penmanship.¹⁶ Shitty writing will happen by hand, typewriter or word processor because a writer's tools can only carry him so far; they cannot compensate for what really matters. Writing must come from experience and not from nostalgic or trendy decisions on the best tools to use. But if things seem headed towards that direction, at least we can take solace by pointing the finger of blame at those twee typists. 

MS of this author's first draft in a lovely script font called Mine

¹ http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/
² http://www.xavier.edu/campusuite25/modules/faculty.cfm?faculty_id=133&grp_id=32
³ http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tributes.html
⁴ One piece, a list of why typewriters are supposedly better than computers, harps repetitively on the obvious fact that typewriters require no tech support, though I would argue that typewriters don't lack mechanical issues: http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/rosica.pdf
⁵ According to one author, typewriters offer more than pen and paper because of the sound of the keys; see http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/mcguire.html (The quality of the puns in this essay alone is worth the read). Another essay muses that using a typewriter could be as authentic as writing with a pen; see http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/pannapacker.html. (This also happens to be the best essay on the site, in this author's opinion).
⁶ A linked article on the Typewriter Tributes page discusses, among other things, historian David McCullough's love of the slowness of using a typewriter: http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typingwriters.pdf.
⁷ The apparently positive link between using a typewriter and building hand strength is discussed here; http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/mcguire.html.
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ One piece groups typewritten letters with handwritten letters and sets them against the personality lacking nature of emails. I find this grouping dubious since one of the interesting things about handwriting is that the words never look identical in every instance, leading the reader to attempt to read the writer's emotions while writing the letter. There is a reason why graphology limits itself to handwriting and does not include manual typewriting: no matter which obscure typewriter one uses, it is still a mass-produced and standardized means of composing a document with a set font, completely lacking in the flair and variance of handwriting. When the typewritten letters vary in appearance it is not due to the author's intent (as so with longhand) but rather to the mechanical quirks of the machine. The essay in question is available here: http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/matthews.html.
¹⁰ One poet believes that different typewriters are conducive to different types of writing (?), and thus he uses various machines for writing: http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/watkins.html
¹¹ Polt himself has over 250 typewriters—http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-collection.html. For more essays that discuss collecting, see http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/alfaro.pdf and http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/best.html.
¹² http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html
¹³ For more on Capote and longhand composition, see http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4867/the-art-of-fiction-no-17-truman-capote 
¹⁴ Leonard wrote his earliest work on a typewriter, then changed to longhand, see http://www.gq.com/entertainment/profiles/200009/elmore-leonard-how-to-write 
¹⁵ One writer gives her typewriter a name and speculates about its history, see http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/kateriewing.pdf. Many of the pieces expand on this theme, often employing the cliché of the old-fashioned journalist, no stranger to excessive alcohol and tobacco use. For examples of this see http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/best.html and http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/persson.html. Another piece that discusses using a famous author's old machine, in this case Jack Kerouac's, can be found here: http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/watkins.html. Yet another writer apparently chose to use a typewriter because Sylvia Plath used one; see http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/alfaro.pdf. 
¹⁶ And if you don't think penmanship is dying, ask yourself when you last heard someone describe their handwriting as something other than shitty. 

Confessions of a Eurosnob: Don't Hate Me 'Cause I Watch Beautiful Football

My name is Nick and I'm a Eurosnob; an American soccer fan whose allegiance lies with a European club. As proof of my Eurosnobbery I will refer to the game as football and soccer interchangeably. I admit this not with pride but with resignation. I have tried—for a decade—to watch soccer without an aesthetic bent and in so doing take part in the burgeoning American scene. But I can't do it.

Why does this matter? The 2014 Major League Soccer season started this weekend and the World Cup kicks off in a little over three months. Soccer is bound to creep even more into the crowded headlines of American sport. The US's chances of advancing out of a tough first round group will be discussed, as will the question of if and when soccer will become mainstream in the American consciousness. The purpose of this piece is not to attempt to explain why soccer has not caught on as a spectator sport stateside. Rather, it is to explain why I am apathetic (but respectful) toward American soccer in general.

My club loyalty lies as AS Roma of the Italian Serie A. While I am of Italian origin, that isn't the only reason why Italian football appeals to me. I like it because of the insane passion of the fans and the tactical nuances. The former has its ugly side: fans racially taunting black players, shining laser pointers in the eyes of free kick takers, littering the pitch with plastic water bottles, etc. But these unsavory instances are more than compensated for by the palpable tension and drama that surrounds each match.

Historians are certain that Caesar supported Roma while Pompey was a Lazio Fan

Tactics is everything in football. Part of this has to do with the rules: the only restriction regarding formations is that there must be one goalkeeper and ten outfield players. Formations come and go like fads. Today's 4-3-3 is yesterdays 4-4-2. Different countries have different theories about how to approach the game. For example, Italy lacks true wingers so Italian sides typically rely upon the fullbacks to both defend and go forward on the wings to contribute to the attack. Tactics is also a big deal because unlike in other sports (basketball, hockey and American football among others) football substitutions are limited to just three per side. So if a manager misjudges his counterpart's strategy, it could cost him the match even if he has the chance to switch things up by making a change. The manager also can only really communicate with the players before the match and during the halftime interval given the lack of stops and crowd noise. Getting the tactics right is crucial and allows little room for error.

Because playing with a centre forward is so mainstream...

A lot of this tactical awareness is less important in MLS since many sides use a so-called workman's approach to the game. The idea of this is to play the ball up the wings and cross it into the box where the forwards can pounce on it and drive it toward goal. Alternatively teams will boot the ball upfield in hopes of allowing the forwards to slip in past the defensive line (thus avoiding offsides), leading to a fast break opportunity. Like any style of play, these tactics can be effective with the right players. But they don't allow the viewer much excitement. It is simply boring to see teams resorting to the long ball and "head tennis" because they lack on the ball skill. Similarly it is less fun to see a defender sloppily hack the ball out of danger instead of calmly and confidently playing it to a nearby teammate in his own half (though there are times when the former is the only option).

This is where creativity comes in. Vision. The ability to read a defense and make that impossible pass to a teammate at just the right time. American soccer suffers from a lack of players that can do this effectively. Many argue that this is because the game is taught at the youth level in a manner that emphasizes constant running and team work rather than slowness and individual flair. The problem with this stance is that it disregards the possibility (or even probability) that a player blessed with essentially unteachable on the ball skills can also contribute to the team by sharing the ball when needed. Soccer is a game in which creativity is often needed in order to score goals. A player who is brilliant on the ball is not necessarily a ballhog (Arjen Robben being an exception), and letting that player have free rein with the ball draws defenders onto him, thus allowing him to pass to an open teammate. This type of player is called the trequartista in Italian, he usually wears the 10 shirt and is set up behind the strikers. The playmaking role is hardly unique to Italian football, but these types of players are more prevalent in countries in which creativity and individual brilliance is prized over the ability to be selfless and run hard throughout the match. The US have a player of this stripe in Landon Donovan, though his performances for the national team and San Jose and Los Angeles in the MLS have far outshone his mediocre numbers while playing in Europe.

Do you recognize this man, America?

This all being said, MLS deserves some commendation. Take growth for instance; from its modest beginnings of 10 franchises in 1996, the league has swelled to 19 teams. By next season that number will be 21, with Orlando and the second NYC metropolitan area team joining the fold (as of now only LA has two teams). Parity is also one of its strong suits. In its 18 seasons, no fewer than 9 teams have lifted the MLS Cup. To put that in perspective, over the last 18 seasons, only 4 teams have won the English Premier League. This lack of parity is common in Europe: just 5 different teams have won the Serie A, 4 Spanish teams have won La Liga, incredibly only 2 clubs have won the Scottish Premiership in that time. It is also exciting to be involved with something from its inception. If you follow a European club this is impossible since the vast majority of them were founded in either the late 19th century or early 20th century. Many clubs "fetishize" their glorious past and or humble founding (1860 Munchen, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Hannover 96 to name but a few German examples). Also, while racial abuse by fans toward players has improved in some parts of Europe (England) more so than in others (Italy unfortunately), this problem is essentially unheard of in MLS.

Age matters apparently

However, for all MLS's strengths, the league still has a long way to go to make it more watchable. This could be helped if the league considered using a relegation/promotion system, where the bottom teams in the top division are relegated to the second division and replaced by the top teams in the second division for the next season. Sponsorship money goes down when a team is relegated to a league with fewer spectators. This prevents a team from being very bad for a long period of time (Chivas USA have missed the MLS playoffs four years in a row). This system is ubiquitous in Europe because the top and lower leagues are old and interconnected. This is not the case in MLS, so one is deprived of one of the hidden pleasures of football: end of the season relegation "playoffs" where bad teams desperately fight for the right to remain amid the glamour of the top division, if only for one more season.

Integrating promotion/relegation into the MLS would be a gargantuan undertaking and would theoretically defy the league's plan of adding franchises and so growing the sport. The problem also remains of whether MLS fans would still support their team if it was relegated to the second tier North American Soccer League. Alternatively the MLS could simply split in two, but the question of continued support would still be there, plus there would be no even split unless the league has an even number of clubs (it doesn't and won't next year). Despite these valid concerns, a system that rewards competence and penalizes incompetence would certainly improve the quality of play in MLS, and many have been clamoring for this type of change.

For some American soccer fans my disdain for the MLS would make me the object of endless scorn. Those more tolerant would argue that I merely want to watch a league with some of the world's greatest players, the same way a Turkish NBA fan may be less passionate about the Turkish Basketball League. I am a football aesthete. One of the reasons I chose to support Roma is because they have always played a free-flowing attacking type of football. Those more open-minded would accept my Eurosnobbery as long as I still support Team USA.

Great kit, not so great team

Well I'm sorry to disappoint everyone but the truth is I only have room in my heart for one national team and that team is Italy. I played soccer a little as a kid (who in America hasn't really?) and I did watch some MLS in its inaugural season, but I was drawn to the European game first. I think it all began by happening on a Champions League telecast one afternoon after school in 2001 or 2002. To borrow a hackneyed phrase, it was love at first sight. After that I started watching Serie A on Sundays via a frequently fuzzy and hopelessly ancient feed on WYBE, a local public television station. It was an almost seamless transition from being soccer ignorant to cognizant of the pantheon of the world's greatest players, Italian or otherwise. Perhaps it is shallow to admit it, but the lack of American players among the world's elite at least partially drew me away from the US national team. The other factor drawing me toward supporting the Azzurri is my ethnicity and that many Roma players have played for both club and country, whereas it was not until 2012 that Roma signed an American player (Michael Bradley, who is now back in the MLS).

NEVER FORGET 

When you support a team that has won four World Cups and one European Championship you are always ready to defend yourself from those calling you a bandwagoner. I celebrated when Italy won the 2006 World Cup, and I also won runner up in my high school's tournament pool. But in order to justify celebrating that victory I had to endure the offensive ineptitude of the Euro 2004 campaign, in which Italy failed to qualify out of a supposedly easy first round group. When South Korea eliminated Italy in the 2002 World Cup knockout rounds I was befuddled, and the 2010 World Cup is inextricably linked with the word vergogna. A bandwagon fan is marked by inconsistency. I have been consistent in supporting Italy, it just so happens that they have won the World Cup and finished runners up in the Euro championship since I have been a fan.

You probably remember this...

But do you remember this too?

To me the biggest threat to American soccer is not the fan like myself, loyal to a single foreign club and country. Rather it is those who support multiple teams and countries, just so long as they are not American. You know the types: Real Madrid/Barcelona fan when watching La Liga, Man United/City/Liverpool/Arsenal/Chelsea "diehard," Juventus/Milan/Inter supporter and Bayern Munich fanatic all rolled into one. Oh I forgot P$G in there but you get the idea. Furthermore I don't understand those Americans that root against the US national team (besides Mexicans due to their rivalry).

I try to be as neutral a fan as possible in games not involving my teams, though I admit that neutrality only goes so far. Neutrality bows to circumstance. For example, I would not have been upset if Ukraine had qualified out of their Euro 2012 first round group because it would have been a proper sending off for their captain Andriy Shevchenko. I spent years rooting against Sheva as a Milan player especially, but he was probably the greatest pure striker in the world in his prime. It would have been a nice human interest story to see him win something in a Ukraine shirt. That didn't happen as Ukraine finished third in their group. However, it was great to see him end his international career by scoring two goals in a win over Sweden in front of his home fans (Ukraine co-hosted the tournament with Poland). Of course, Ukraine weren't in Italy's group in that tournament. Had they been, this entire human interest story wouldn't have appealed to me. Sheva and his countrymen would have been the adversary and nothing more (as they were in the 2006 quarterfinal when Italy trounced them three-nil).

#RESPECT 

So to sum up: I watch football that I am culturally and aesthetically attracted to. I'll still watch some MLS this year as a neutral with the slightest bias toward the Philadelphia Union. If they do well, I'll be happy the same way a father would be happy if his son's high school team made regionals. Content but not triumphant. As for the US national team, I hope they win the World Cup if Italy doesn't. Though who am I kidding, either Brazil or Argentina will end up winning it. So I'm still partisan toward the game I love but every football fan is partisan one way or another.

Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity. Cain, James M. 1935. New York: Vintage, 1989.

Reading this novel is like striking a match and becoming entranced by the intricacy and aesthetic beauty of the flame until it dissolves and you close the book and never want to write another word because you will never be as clean a stylist as James M. Cain is. Of course, if you've no aspirations about writing then you won't have have to stomach that dose of pessimism upon finishing Double Indemnity. This book is like 99% fat free ground chuck...there is literally nothing in it that is unnecessary. No florid pretentiousness. No "bet you can't understand this" anatomies of a murder. No stilted cliches. One wonders how much Cain had to edit out of his earlier draft(s). It is a fucking shame that most people will probably think that it was only a movie screenwritten by Raymond Chandler, and not an absolutely great novel written by someone else less famous. As good old Horace says, I don't like slobbering plebeian entertainment fiend idiots, and I stay away from their shit. Or something like that. By the way, this book is so damned readable that it will probably only take twice as much time to read as it would take to watch the film. Have I made myself clear, class? Stop bitching about how Wilder's adaptation didn't win any Oscars and start bitching about why Cain isn't a household name.

Double Indemnity is about Walter Huff, an insurance salesman in seedy LA who meets the seductive Phyllis Nirdlinger who is unsatisfied with her married life and drops a hint about purchasing accident insurance for her husband without telling him. The narrator, experienced in insurance sleaze in a noirish kind of way, picks up on her hint and becomes her partner in crime because he falls in love with her. The narration is done in a first person, confessional manner by the seemingly ordinary Walter, who meticulously maps out not only how to kill, but how to get away with killing. Inevitably though, complications hinder the lovers' plan, in the form Walter's suspecting coworker Keyes and with Phyllis's daughter Lola, along with her supposedly ne'er-do-well boyfriend Sachetti. I'm not saying another word about the plot of this novel because it's only 115 pages long and if you start it, you will be psychologically obliged to finish it (unless you happen to start it when you are bleeding to death or in some other kind of grave danger).

The only problem I have with this wonderfully dark story, the teensiest little speck on an otherwise gleaming, flawless canvas, the mole on the Mona Lisa if you will, is that I found the attraction between the lovers and co-murderers a tad unbelievable. What I mean by this is that after Walter executes the murder, for obvious reasons he cannot be seen with Phyllis because he sold her the insurance policy. This distance causes Walter to kind of fall out of love with her but simultaneously fall in love with Lola (with a little pity toward her thrown in for good measure). Perhaps the sparseness of the narrative here does not work to its advantage, as a more wordy style would make the attraction seem more plausible. Indeed, in novels of this type, call it noir or hardboiled or whatever, it is usually the crime that seems more believable than whatever romance springs up from the well of the plot. But look, if you want a book that describes romance in a more realistic way, there are only millions of others to choose from. So quit complaining. Besides, how can you hate on a style that is this controlled?

I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death that you've been reading about in the papers. It didn't look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California, with white walls, red tile roof, and a patio out to one side. (3)
...
   Her brow wrinkled up, and I saw there was nothing washed-up about her. What gave her that look was a spray of freckles across her forehead. She saw me looking at them. "I believe you're looking at my freckles."
   "Yes, I was. I like them."
   "I don't."
   "I do." (11)

SSSNNNIIIIP...SNIP...SNIP...SNIP...SSSSSNIP. You hear that? It's Cain cutting the bullshit out of description and dialogue in a way that would make Hemingway blush. This novel is minced onion while most others contain far too many semi-sliced chunks. It's lean but mean. Clean but sordid. Stylistically straightforward but emotionally conflicted...and why shouldn't it be this way, since it's about a man who kills for love and regrets it?

The Thin Man

The Thin Man. Hammett, Dashiell. 1933. New York: Vintage, 1992.

With more red herrings than a fish market, The Thin Man is the perfect example of an important work that it is easy to respect but hard to love. It is important in that Dashiell Hammett was really the first writer of noir fiction, a genre that has never lacked devoted readers and writers. The story concerns Nick Charles, a former San Francisco gumshoe who is on vacation in New York with his wife Nora when he suddenly learns of the murder of Julia Wolf, former secretary (and mistress) to Clyde Wynant, an eccentric inventor who previously employed Nick to tail a jealous rival inventor who claims Wynant ripped him off. Nick starts getting messages from Wynant, asking for his help in finding Julia's murderer through the latter's attorney Herbert Macaulay, who served with Nick during the war. Despite his better judgment, Nick gradually becomes involved with the case as well as with Wynant's family: his controlling and dangerous ex wife, strangely bookish son and beautiful but naive daughter. Double crossings and acts of violence ensue as Nick becomes more involved in solving the crime.

Ultimately, the novel is a disappointment given that it starts so strongly. The reader is immediately drawn to the cool world weary charisma of Nick Charles, the archetypical PI who has seen evil in its many incarnations. The main problem with the book is that the concepts it relies upon eventually grow stale. The jokes certainly have not aged well. Reading this book in and of itself is almost a kind of detective work in that one must determine not what is, but what isn't a lie. There are simply too many characters, many of which end up contributing nothing to the plot besides artificial drama. Unnecessary characters aside, one wonders whether this story could have worked as a piece of short fiction instead.

This novel is less a work of noir fiction than a progenitor of the whodunit. One should not dismiss Hammett solely on grounds of this novel; his short stories are excellent in that they are imagistic, with hardly any of the narrator's or other character's thoughts expressed. Stylistically, Hammett is almost surgical in his economy. One cannot deny his ability to write clearly and distinctively. But the story is simply too complicated for the reader to follow along, and there is remarkably less action and bloodshed than the reader would expect. Much of the narrative consists of Nick relaying new information from one character to another; information that he gets from unreliable sources. The contrived nature of the plot alienates the reader. One of Hammett's earlier short stories "The Man Who Killed Dan Odams" is the epitome of simplicity: a man breaks out of jail and hides out in a remote house, taking the woman and boy who live there hostage. He reveals his identity to them, and this leads to his downfall as the they are the family of the man that the protagonist killed (which got him thrown in jail in the first place). What is remarkable about that story is that it is so pared down that there is nothing unnecessary. So focused is the author that every little detail serves some purpose. The images tell the story—in true noir style the thoughts of the characters rarely break into the narrative.

There is little of that precise focus in The Thin Man, even though as far as novels go, it is rather short. If anything, this book tends more toward hardboiled fiction, but it is nowhere near as effective a piece of writing as say, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity. One gets the feeling that this work is less a story than a kind of gigantic math problem with the final chapter (in which Nick explains to Nora how ——— murdered Julia Wolf et al.) serving as a QED flourish.

Tampa

Tampa. Nutting, Alissa. New York: HarperCollins, 2013.

POST UNDER MAINTENANCE

Far From the Madding Crowd

Far From the Madding Crowd. Hardy, Thomas. 1876. Naples, FL: Trident Press International, 2001.

Cuter than a Wes Anderson set, this is the tale of a Victorian hottie who has to choose between three horndogs til she finds the right one—like Goldilocks and the porridge. Bathsheba Everdene has recently inherited her family farm, which in modern terms is like saying her STACKS of GREEN are so high that she can't see the HATERS. Naturally Bathsheba becomes Weatherbury's hottest commodity and the servants start gossiping about who is to take her hand (and farm and something else ifyaknowwhaimsayin).  In an interesting feminist twist, Bathsheba decides to try to run the farm herself which is entirely inappropriate for a young hardbody. Y'all saw that reality show with Paris Hilton and her friend having to work on a farm right? Farming ain't the province of beautiful ladiezzz. Bathsheba attempts to master buying and selling crops at market but realizes that she ain't cut out for that shit. What she needs is a man to manage the boring stuff while she chills in her mansion and gossips with her BFF Liddy.

At this point she has already turned down one of her suitors, the indefatigably honest shepherd Gabriel Oak, who is still getting over it. Oak ain't the most socially adept bloke in Wessex because he proposes to Bathsheba like the second time that he meets her (and before she becomes Bath$heba). Girl is freaked out for reals. But Oak is a morally upright character who, as is typical of Hardy, gets tragically fucked over by the forces of fate. His mutt goes berserk and drives his flock over a cliff leaving Oak to have to pay back the deposit on the animals. Just like credit card debt...sooner or later you gotta pay up for all those borrowed dollars/sheep, naimsayin? Oak settles with his creditors but has no green leftover for himself. But his good nature ends up getting him a job, as he proves to be adept at saving a corn harvest from a sudden fire. The locals put in a good word and Bathsheba decides to hire him even though she kinda knows that he is sooo not over her. Also Oak is a master shepherd and there's this one scene where the sheep start dying of this rapidly accelerating disease and the farmhands are powerless to stop it and Gabriel is all like EVERYBODY CHILL THE FUCK OUT I GOT THIS. Except he didn't curse like that but he has that kind of confidence about matters of sheep.

Bachelor no. 2 is Boldwood, and the first part of that portmanteau is a misnomer. Boldwood is a stick-up-his-ass...I mean stick-in-the-mud sort of fellow who has a good reputation in the community, but like Oak he isn't the type to spend his vacay in Ibiza. Boldwood takes a fancy to Bathsheba after the latter, in a totally girly move straight out of seventh grade, conspires with Liddy to send a letter to Boldwood that says "MARRY ME AND MAKE ME GO UNNNNH UNNNNH UNNNNH" (OK I made that last part of it up). Teehee. Girls can be so capricious and conniving, amirite? Bathsheba doesn't really fancy him but TOO LATE SINCE BOLDY AIN'T NEVER GONNA FORGET THAT. Girl, you don't tempt a lonely, reserved farmer like that and expect he's not gonna take it seriously! So Boldy now fancies Bathy and she's like "jk lol sry about that" and he's like "you cruel bitch...I mean you delightfully angelic creature who has acted cruelly toward me!" See, Boldy is one of those idealistic lover types and since he has fallen in love with Bathy nothing shakes him out of it. I'm talkin' Heathcliff style bitches, 'cept his love is unrequited.

But look, a challenger approaches! It's Sergeant Troy: rogueish, fit, Anglo-French, Byronic badboy with a sword. Troy is all about breakin' rules and breakin' hos. His idea of a good time is a Casterbridge pussyquest during a furlough and while this lad has class, he's a right proper socialist, baby, when it comes to the ladiezzz. Meaning he likes the servant girls as well as the rich bitches. Meaning he has sex with runaway servant babe Fanny Robin (you expected a fanny joke there didn't yer?). Prolly the best scene of the novel is where Troy tries to seduce Bathsheba using his sword trick. He blindfolds her and wields his peen-blade marvelously all around poor Bathy but he promises that it never touched/penetrated her. Wooing...you're doing it right.

Bathy is totally into him even though Oak warns her that Troy seems to be a...how you say...WANKER. Oak suggests she marry Boldy instead, but rich bitches get what they want (even in Victorian times, reader) so the two hotties marry each other. Oak's crit of Troy ends up being spot on since he dunno a thing about farming and the like and attempts to ingratiate himself to the servants by getting them plastered. Unfortunately this happens right before a storm is about to brew so everyone is too drunk to remember to cover the corn harvest. See, in this book corn is like the same thing as money so it is even more shocking to find out that poor Boldy has been neglecting his crop ever since Bathsheba turned him down. Oak comes to the rescue, as per usual, and manages to limit the damage, but Bathy won't have a servant instruct her on her love affairs so she has little patience for Oak stating the obvious fact that Troy is a...how you say...douche. However she seems to allow Liddy to give her love advice, which must fall under the "girl talk exemption clause." Troy also has a taste for gambling and since he's married to Bath$heba "Cha-Ching" Everdene, he's always like "canna yer lend me five quid for the races—I mean investments—that I am looking into?" At the same time Troy is carrying on a sexy affair with Fanny, but Bathy never fully catches on (though Oak does).

This is a Hardy novel so TRAGEDY STRIKES. Fanny, exiled in shame in a Victorian workhouse, dies from unknown causes (broken heart? VD?). Troy and Bathsheba are absolutely shaken and they handle the funeral which (conveniently) allows Fanny's body to rest at the house before burial. Oak covers the casket because he does not want Bathsheba to know the truth about Troy's phallic escapades. But alas, in her grief Bathy opens the casket to find that poor Fanny was with child. Troy's evasiveness toward her about Fanny and the fact that he carries a lock of her hair in his watch allow Bathy to piece together that her douchebag husband is unfaithful. The marriage falls apart and Troy wanders about, only to go for a swim and (conveniently, for later purposes of the plot) leave all his shit on the shore. He is carried out by a strong current and a bystander reports that he has surely drowned.

News reaches Bathsheba that she is newly single and ready to mingle but she's in no mood for fun. Poor girl still blames herself for Troy's treachery. But the news excites someone in Weatherbury...dear old Boldy, still nursing his lust for Bathsheba. He's like "Hey girl, now that your husband is out of the picture, how about we elope lol" and she's like "um...I could only marry for love and I don't love you" and he's like "s'cool I'll just bother you about it all the time and remind you about how you fucking played with my emotions with that letter so much that I wished I were dead. You owe it to me bitch." While it is true that Bathsheba wants to marry for love she also believes that Troy is not dead since they never found his body. And wouldn't you know it, but her wifely instincts are right! Troy survived and was picked up by a ship and by some naked, cray cray method makes it to America where he becomes, and I quote, "Professor of Gymnastics, Sword Exercise, Fencing, and Pugilism." Then he remembers that he has a hott wife waiting back in Engerland so he returns and takes the perfect job for a disgraced-husband-seeking-to-win-back-his-wife-and-her-estate: he joins the bloody circus. His object is to get a sense of what Bathy is up to and how disgraced his reputation is with her and the town folk.

Everybody who's anybody (livestock included) show up at the Sheep Fair at Greenhill, where Troy plays the performing role of legendary highwayman Dick Turpin. In order to conceal himself he has to rely on disguising his face and limiting the speaking of his part and he seems to pull it off as Bathsheba does not notice...but the narsty baliff Pennyways does. This Pennyways was sacked by Bathsheba earlier on for stealing grain so he's desperate to curry her favour by informing her that her hubby is alive and well. But Troy has other plans; he follows Pennyways to the tea tent where Boldy and Bathy are having a quaff and after Pennyways gives her the note which says that her husband is alive, he furtively reaches from behind the curtain and snatches it from her before she has a chance to read it.

Meanwhile Boldy guilt-trips Bathy into considering the prospect of marrying him in six years, because at that point Troy would be considered dead and she could then legally remarry. They agree Bathsheba will give her answer at the upcoming Christmas Eve bash at Boldwood's crib. Troy consults with Pennyways' and with his help constructs a costumed disguise (of the type that work in novels and not in real life), intending to gatecrash and wifegrab with one swift stroke. But news of Pennyways' discovery of Troy spreads throughout Oak and the farmhands. They decide to tell Bathy the truth before she foolishly commits to Boldwood but (conveniently) they haven't the heart to break up the absolutely bonkers partay. Boldy's plan to strong-arm Bathy into being his betrothed works and she agrees that she will marry no one else until the time period elapses and she will be his. Boldwood, raging with a boner of joy, gets hammered and welcomes a new stranger into the house who just so happens to be Troy. He orders Bathy to leave with him and Boldy snaps and shoots the adulterer. Bathy feints. Troy dies. Boldy turns himself in (but is spared the noose).

TIME PASSES and the town folk start treating Bathsheba like she's got a case of the crabs. I'm talking glacier cold, and the worst of it is that Oak avoids our poor hottie as well. Bathsheba no doubt thinks that Oak has saved her ass like three times and has had enough and that is why he wants to leave England for Cali. But she's wrong, my friends, because if there is one true theme in this tale of cattle and cads, horse dung and horndogs, it is FRIENDSHIP. Oak and Bathsheba's relationship oscillates from Death Valley to the bloody Matterhorn but they never give up on each other and so it is only natural that this wonderful novel ends in their marriage.

Is this book too dated for modern readers? (It isn't...BYDHTTMWFI). Read it and decide for yourself.

Keep turning those pages, readers.

Glamorama

Glamorama. Ellis, Bret Easton. New York: Vintage, 1998.

This is my favorite book of all time. I'm often at a loss as to how to explain why I love it so much, since I generally don't care for American fiction. I think the reason why is that it offers an invigorating reading experience. You will get the full gamut of emotions from this novel. It is as likely to make you laugh as it is to make you cry as it is to make you wince as it is to make you hurl as it is to turn you on. If you can make it past the first third of the narrative then you will likely finish it, as at that point it takes a three hundred sixty degree turn. Not a full turn, since the protagonist Victor Ward's character never really changes even if the plot does.

Glamorama is an achievement because the world of vapid supermodels does not seem well fitted to literature. After all, in a profession where one look says everything who cares what anyone says? And indeed, this book is filled with trite and ridiculously banal dialogue. Victor Ward has the philosophical depth of a paper plate. It is only when his life and everyone in it are endangered that he even begins to act introspective, to comprehend the magnitude of fashion in bed with terrorism. As the book goes on there is less of the label conscious itemization that has been attacked by so many critics and retched at by so many readers. Vicariously we want to be Victor Ward because of who he sleeps with and who he hangs out with. We are superficially in love with what he is capable of, even if he himself stands for nothing. He is an imbecile, but some of us would willingly give up their intelligence in exchange for that body and what comes with it. As it is with Ellis, surface is what matters.

What many fail to pick up on is that this book is a satire. Ellis does not praise the fashion industry in Glamorama. Instead he viciously attacks it. None of his characters are happy because they are too busy being hip; they prefer pouts to grins. The smell of shit is a repeating trope in this book, jockeying for position with the Chanel infused molecules of the hippest of parties. The claim that models can become terrorists is reasonably sound given that their lives are all about access: what exclusive clubs they can get into and what material pleasures (drugs, sex) come with that. Perhaps it is simplistic to say that models are docile, unquestioning (but good looking) pieces of meat, oblivious to questions of morality or sexual decency. But you have to admire the courage of this author because he absolutely does not back down from making that claim. Ellis is the type of writer who is not afraid to scare and offend you. It is these types of writers who come to define an age, not the mildly shocking drivel of the "pick your genre" crowd. Where others feint a strike, Ellis delivers a knockout punch. Read it to understand what the 90s were about and prepare to be shocked and amazed.